


A Dead Man the Voyage Brought Back

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood Drinking, Gen, Post-season 7, Purgatory, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:32:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knew it was only a matter of time before he met someone he'd known or killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dead Man the Voyage Brought Back

**Author's Note:**

> Title from A Small Dawn by Najwan Darwish. Thanks to Desertport, Evitably, and Salty-catfish for cheerleading and beta-reading. Any and all remaining mistakes are mine. [Orignally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/254311.html).]

Dean has a vague plan for surviving Purgatory that consists of not stopping, and a small, silent hope of stumbling upon Cas.

He'd survived that first run-in with the wolves - red eyes like hellhounds and Dean had had to remind himself they weren't really - despite Cas disappearing and leaving him to fend for himself. 

After, he'd picked a direction, a group of naked hills as a landmark, and followed his chosen path with stubborn determination. It had been slow, progress hindered by sudden attacks, by the long gash a lone vetala had left on the inside of his thigh a few days ago.

But he hasn't stopped. The hills are to his left, the forest, large and menacing to his right, the narrow path in between a minefield of rough terrain and holes that are hell on his wounded leg. Not stopping gives him no time for thinking or wondering why Cas flew away, if it was voluntary, if he is even alive. No time for worrying if Sam is all right topside. Both thoughts keep clenching around him, though, with dread and a panic that makes him stumble more than his wounded leg calls for.

He's been settled in a routine for days, fending off monsters and dulling the edge of his machete against flesh and bones. Running against the pain when he needs to, because he doesn't want to become the main course to sate their encompassing hunger. Resting for only a few minutes when the strip he'd cut from the tail end of his shirt to bind his wound had been reduced to a bloody rag. 

There isn't a lot left of his shirt anymore, and he'd been wondering, in a corner of his brain, how the hell he's surviving the massive blood loss; he'd felt woozy at times, but not as much as he should have. Thirsty and exhausted but without that urgency that tells him his body is going to say _fuck you_ soon. 

As he sits under the skeleton of a huge tree, a sudden thought chills him. He stills, bloody fingers on the bloody leg of his jeans. He's seen monsters resuscitate, bloody limbs and cut heads reassemble - some faster, others slower - but always, without fail, getting back up again. Nothing fucking dies in Purgatory because everything is already dead and maybe Dean can't die either. 

He blames his distraction on the fear the idea puts in his blood - the memories - to the loud beating of his heart, and he doesn't hear them when they come. They jump him from behind, long talons on his shoulders that his leather jacket is barely enough to protect him from. Dean starts slashing, needs a lot of strength behind each blow to maim and kill. But they can't die. Even hacked to pieces, they'll come back. 

He buys himself enough time to run away, though, find a place to hide and hope he doesn't leave a trail of fresh human blood as invitation for a free dinner. 

He runs, aiming deep in the heart of the forest and hopefully not as further inside that he'll get lost in the tall trees and thick growth. Ducks under low branches, and uses the machete only sparingly when the undergrowth gets as thick as a wall - ferns and shrubs and saplings twisted together. His leg doesn't even hurt anymore, although blood has been seeping into his jeans and filling his boot. He skids to a halt when he gets to a large opening, trees lining it like a crowd of spectators.

Dean's breathing in short gasps, heart beating so fast he's worried it's going to explode out of his ribcage. He tries to still, strains his ears for signs of pursuit, but everything is silent behind him. Too silent, he realizes a moment too late. The roots have already twined around his ankles, creeping up to his legs and torso, pinning his arms to his sides. He doesn't even have time to raise his machete in a ridiculous attempt to protect himself. A long, knotted root circles his neck and chokes a cry and a curse - at himself at Cas, at whoever gets a kick out of screwing up Dean's life so thoroughly. 

Then he's falling onto the ground - more like dragged, really - toward the center of the clearing, where more roots surge from the ground, twist around his torso and legs, around his arms. His neck. 

Dean's experienced strangulation, knows the blind panic that comes from it, when air doesn't go past his throat and the world starts to get fuzzy at the edges, softer, even gentler. He died of it so many times in hell, he should be used to the sensation by now.

Familiarity doesn't make it any easier; panic seizes him with each failed breath, lungs spasming violently. He convulses inside the grip of the roots. Pain explodes everywhere but his body doesn't seem to care. _Dean_ doesn't care. The roots give a shudder and tighten faster around him, stilling him completely and taking away even the illusion of fighting back. 

Long moments pass when the only noise Dean hears is his heartbeat, rhythm gone erratic, each pump loud and strained. His vision clouds - a starlit dark creeps in at the edges - until he can only see a small sliver of the sickly green canopy that hides the gray sky. He doesn't have a last thought before everything goes dark.

*

He wakes up and for a moment he's not surprised; thinks, _Of course he won't let me die_. He's afraid to open his eyes and see the prison of bones and Alastair's smug face. Then his head clears up and he remembers he's not in hell, just someplace hell-adjacent. A fast inventory of his body makes aches and pain stand to attention like dutiful children: a burning sensation courses through his body, sharper around his neck when he tries to swallow, but he'd be hard pressed to decide what hurts most. 

Something presses on his mid-section, and when he tries to move it's more an uncoordinated flail. He whimpers when something sharp presses into his flesh and his eyes open on a reflex. He's hanging upside down, hands tied together at the wrists and forearm with something that looks like rope but isn't quite, and someone is carrying him in a fireman's carry. He sees the back of this person's legs, high boots and black jeans, but then he has to close his eyes against the dizziness at being carried upside down. 

Fuck, he's lost his jacket.

"Stay still," a male voice says. 

It makes Dean want to move just out of spite. The grip on his lower back tightens, a threat of more pain when something that feels like claws pushes further inside his flesh. Dean goes limp, resigned, and the claws withdraw. 

Some time passes in silence, the point of a bony shoulder pushing painfully against Dean's ribcage with each step. Dean knows he should open his eyes, should at least make an effort to see where the fucker is taking him, but the futility of it has settled into his bones, and a dangerous thought is filling his brain. It's nice to be carried for a while, get off his leg, stop running, even if it means that he's being merrily led to a painful, gory death at the hand of some monster. 

A chuckle breaks the silence; whoever is carrying him readjusts Dean's body to a more comfortable position.

"You've always been a stubborn son of a bitch. You giving up now?"

*

He gets thrown onto the ground without much care. His left hip hits the rock first, sending an electric shock along his leg that leaves it numb. He remains like that, breathing through his open mouth. He's bound arms and legs, but he manages to lever himself sideways, and to drag his sorry ass to a semi-sitting position. The place is pitch black, damp and cold like a cavern. He's been dragged pretty far inside. The ground is covered in a viscid substance that smells fouler than sulfur. 

Steps reverberate on the walls with a hollow noise when his captor gets closer. Hands grip him under his armpits and Dean, trussed up and aching like he is, can only let himself be manhandled into a sitting position against a cold wall.

"Better?" the voice asks.

"Fuck you," Dean answers. He gets a hard slap to his face for his trouble that leaves his right ear ringing and his cheek burning. He doesn't fall sideways only because the asshole keeps him upright.

"Don't be a smartass, Dean."

His name, said out loud with such natural ease, makes him want to crawl as far as he can from those hands. 

"Who are you?" he asks. 

Silence, an expectant quality to it. Dean had wondered if he'd end up meeting someone he'd killed, only a matter of time because he's lucky like that. Blood pools inside his mouth where a tooth has broken the inside of his cheek and Dean spits the blood on the ground. Hands seize his throat suddenly in a loose circle, not meant to hurt, only to immobilize. Dean holds his breath, the man's own breathing wet and frantic against his cheek; then something wet and soft on the corner of his lips. A tongue laps tentatively at it, kitten-like. 

"You taste good," the man says, and his voice is a controlled choke that can't mask the want even in that absolute darkness. 

Dean doesn't dare move. Something nags at the periphery of his consciousness: just out of reach, a glimmer of recognition too nebulous to pinpoint yet. The darkness presses like a physical wall on Dean's mind, on his memory, makes it fuzzy and spotty.

The hands haven't let go of his throat yet, but Dean dares to speak anyway.

"Who are you?"

"You're a hunter, Dean. You know that a vampire will never forget your scent."

Dean's brain scrambles frantically, chasing a memory of the familiar voice until he finally grasps it.

"Gordon," he breathes.

*

They sit silent for a long time, the only noise inside the cavern Gordon's breathing and Dean's; outside, the occasional, distant scream whitens the darkness and makes Dean's hairs stand up on end. Dean's body is numb, back and legs so cold he can't feel his pains and aches anymore. Once in a while, Gordon presses his palm on the long gash on Dean's leg. His fingers dig into the wounds so warm blood gushes out. Pain flares briefly, then, and Dean's nearly glad for it: a reminder that he's still alive.

Gordon doesn't make any noise while he licks Dean's blood, but Dean feels the tension in Gordon's body change whenever he does, muscles snapping up where they touch. After, he settles alongside Dean, warming one of his sides.

"Nothing tastes as good as human blood," Gordon says under his breath a long time into their tense silence. 

Dean gets it, the memory of his stint as vampire still fresh enough that his gut clenches with remembered want. He doesn't think it's a good idea to tell Gordon, though.

"Critters' blood is bland, sour. Can't ever get sated with it," Gordon says.

The next time Gordon feeds from his leg - no teeth, only tongue - Dean settles as best he can against the cold wall and in his binds, lets his head fall back and closes his eyes. For the first time since he's landed in purgatory, he sleeps.

*

His own whimpers wake him up. He's shivering, the cold settled deep in his bones -- Gordon isn't at his side. He blinks fruitlessly at the darkness, and tries to make out some kind of shape, but it remains complete, a wall he can't break. His hands and arms ache in the bindings when he tries to move them. He thinks he gets an impression of red eyes, gone too soon, then darkness overtakes it all. _Gordon?_ he thinks he says, throat too dry to voice his call. His body clenches at the idea of losing that human contact and he laughs,breathless, at the irony. The languid rhythm of Gordon feeding on his blood had been a weird comfort.

He tries to move and finds his body unresponsive, his arms useless in his lap even beside the ropes. Something upsets the darkness, moving clouds against a black sky, and he strains his ears. He might be still dreaming, because he hears something, barely a whisper but distinct over the blank silence: a voice, like a hushed lullaby. 

Reality sets in when he recognizes Gordon as the singer. He's got a deep voice, sweet, his tone so different than the way he's spoken to Dean. Someone else speaks when he finally falls silent, a girl plaintive and begging. Dean leans toward it, something he had not intended to do, and his clothes must have rustled, made some noise, because two sets of red eyes bright like headlights turn his way.

It all happens too fast to make sense of it: a body, heavy and foul-smelling, falls onto him, and hands snap his head sideways. He flinches from the sting of pointy teeth that so easily break his skin, the unmistakable sensation of blood draining from his jugular. He's been fed from more times than he cares to remember and the loss of control still surprises him. 

He can't do more than raise his arms in hopeless defense before he drowns in the torpor that pervades his body, a capitulation that's better than sleep. No bloody dreams at least. And maybe this is it, Dean thinks. This is what he'd been walking toward all these days. He'd been a fool to think he could survive in Purgatory with a blunt-edged machete and a stubborn determination to get back to Sam, to find Cas maybe, as his only weapons.

He sinks into the ground under the weight of the body that's feeding from him, neck craning right to give a better access in a move that surprises him: he's not afraid of being turned. He closes his eyes and reclaims back the darkness as his own. He's been ready to go for so long, only his brother holding him back, empty promises like a bag of wind.  
Maybe this is the only possible exit. Maybe he can hope for heaven afterward, even if it only means experiencing his top ten memories for the rest of eternity. Maybe he'll get to see his mom again, young and beautiful like he remembers her. 

It would be so easy. 

Nothing good is waiting for him outside, only more gray, never-changing skies and monsters crawling out of every corner like worms from under an upturned rock.

Dean can't tell if he hasn't walked in circles all this time - he surely has all his life - and if he hasn't he doesn't know if the direction he picked even leads somewhere. Running had been only a plan concocted to avoid going crazy. A plan for the sake of having one. Nothing good is waiting for him outside, only more gray, never-changing skies and monsters crawling out of every corner like worms from under an upturned rock. 

As far as death goes, this is not so bad. Beats hellhounds and electrocution, beats a lot of things he doesn't want to think about. He laughs, must have made a sound, he doesn't know with his thoughts bouncing so loudly in his head. 

The vampire who's feeding from him grips his shoulders and torso in a parody of a lover's embrace. A woman's body: long hair tickles his face and neck and Dean considers distantly that this must be the girl Gordon was singing to. 

He doesn't notice when the pressure on his neck fades or when the weight on his body eases. 

"That's enough, Susan." 

"No," Dean proetsts, but it's too late. She's gone.

A scuffle of bodies fighting, a strangled scream, and a dull thump isn't enough to prick his interest as he lies there, not feeling his body anymore until a brush against his face brings him back to himself.

There's tenderness in Gordon's voice when he slaps him, and an hint of regret. "I don't think you can die here, Dean," he says.

*

It's much later, and the dizziness of blood loss is replaced by a weightless sensation. 

"Who is she?" Dean asks.

It's not even the most urgent question he has, but he can't bring himself to think of what Gordon said, and how it changes things. It's not like he hadn't suspected already; it's been there, in the back of his head - no food, no water, no sleep, and he'd kept standing. But he'd hoped; all this time it'd been his exit strategy _numeros uno, dos_ and _tres_. 

Gordon doesn't answer straight away, but Dean hears him move closer.

"You have a lighter?"

"Inside pocket of my jeans."

Gordon's fast and efficient when he takes Dean's Zippo. He lights it immediately, and the bright flame light makes Dean's eyes water.

"Fuck," he says slamming his eyes shut. Gordon closes the cap on the flame with a metallic click.

"It's still working. Isn't it amazing?" Gordon's disembodied voice comes from Dean's left, farther up than Dean thought he was. It sounds like he's doing something. Then the soft light of moving flames floods the cavern. Torches that burns a high red flame. To get his eyes used to it, Dean looks toward the darker corner of the cavern, where the torches cast shadows on the nooks on wall and isn't as bright. Something moves there that isn't the dancing light, a woman with long matted hair that covers her face. Dean can see ropes similar to the ones that bind Dean on her bare feet and around her wrists. She's sitting in the same position as Dean: an exact mirror.

"Everything keeps working forever here."

Dean starts at Gordon's voice, heart like a rabbit in his chest.

"Nothing dies here because we're already dead."

He's not dead, Dean thinks, or maybe he is and he doesn't know it yet. He averts his eyes from the woman, takes in the other details of his surroundings. There's not a lot to see: a makeshift bed inside a small niche in the rock, something that looks like a table in the center of the cavern with an assortment of weapons on it. He can see knives and guns and hand-made arrows. 

"It doesn't matter that you're not," Gordon says. "You're here, you're bound to the same rules." He leans on the table, taking something in his hands. The long blade of Dean's machete reflects a dull red light on Gordon's face and finally Dean gets a good look at him.

"I've been bleeding you for days, Dean," he goes on, but Dean's distracted by the scar at the base of Gordon's neck -- thin and regular and black, like a razor wire went through it. Dean shivers. 

"You got your femoral artery shredded. You should have died on the spot."

Gordon lets the machete fall on the table with a clatter of metal on metal. His eyes flare, bright, and Dean flinches when Gordon moves to stand in front of him.

"At first," he says, "I thought I was wrong, it couldn't be _you_. I thought it was your brother, similar scent; it was a possibility. It would have made more sense, right? He's been a monster all his life."

"Fuck you," Dean says. "You don't know anything."

Gordon sits cross-legged with a smooth movement, close enough his knee touch Dean's leg . "I know more than you think. I heard things, rumors, little facts that I knew how to put together. Lucifer, man. Guess you're sorry now that you didn't kill him, eh?"

"Like you killed your sister?" It all becomes clear as soon as he says it. Dean knows who the woman tied in the corner is.

Gordon flinches, but Dean has no time to enjoy the petty victory. He doesn't see Gordon move, then his hand is around Dean's neck, strangles the breath inside Dean's lungs. The change in Gordon's face is terrible and sudden: fangs, yes, Dean's familiar with those, but also a shifting of the bones under the skin, a rearrangement of features into something that is still Gordon but not quite.

"I did what I had to do, Dean. Can you say the same?" There's power in Gordon's push, all the strength of his arm and and shoulder on the delicate bones of Dean's neck, on the soft tissue, on Dean's trachea. Strangulation lasts only seconds this time, then Gordon lets him fall, limp and gasping and numb. "You were too weak to do what you had to. Let your brother break the world.

Gordon's face is back to normal.

"Look at her," he says, and Dean does, sees the woman -- just a girl, really -- staring back. There's something harsh in her beauty, something cut short too soon: high cheekbones and full lips, even though her eyes are red like embers and the eagerness in them can't quite mask the hunger. "She never hurt a fly, I made sure of it. And I'm still protecting her even now."

Then, like a stiletto right through Dean's heart. "Can you say the same of Sam?" 

*

Gordon goes away after a while, leaving a lit torch and his sister as Dean's only company. She's still, head turned toward the rock, sleeping or passed out, Dean doesn't know. 

"Don't worry," Gordon had said while checking that Dean hadn't loosened his bonds. "She won't bother you. Before, it was a mistake. She... she's been here for a long time. It's hard for her to control herself."

He'd followed Gordon with his eyes until he disappeared behind a narrow passage in the rock Dean hadn't seen before. He'd taken a long knife from the table and left the rest of the weapons there and for the first time, something like interest had replaced the torpor that Dean had sunken into. 

Dean's been staring at the weapons since then. It wouldn't change anything, and he grunts on a wave of pins-and-needles coursing through his legs and arms when he leans back. It's not like better armed makes a difference, it's not like he has any idea where to go, and this deal with not dying is setting his heart to a fast beat with resurfaced memories: he knows he can't do it again. Gordon sounds like the better choice in a sea of shitty ones. 

He looks at his arms. He could try to get out of the ropes, even though they have melted into his jacket like they're alive. He could wiggle like a worm to the table, find something sharp, and free himself.

"My brother will take care of you." Susan says. No inflection, like she's reading a line, no emotion behind her words.

He feels her attention before she speaks, but he starts anyway.

She's shaken her hair out of her face, revealing high cheekbones and a full mouth, regular features evident even under grime and bruises. Eighteen, maybe twenty. Older than Gordon when she'd died, although the details of the tale Gordon's had shared so long ago are fuzzy. The only thing Dean remembers clearly is that Gordon had hunted and killed her after she'd been turned.

She looks at his bleeding leg and licks her lips; hunger makes her eyes flare brighter than the torch. 

"Girl, I hate to break it to you, but your brother is keeping you tied up and hidden in a cave in your afterlife." Dean goes for sarcastic and misses the mark by a few miles. He's horrified and freaked out by her serene smile.

She shakes her head. "You don't get how hard it is out there."

With a sudden movement she's out of her bindings and Dean's afraid and scrambling backward against the hard surface of the rock.

Gordon is predictable even in his monster state. A hunter still. But he has no idea what Susan will do or say, and Gordon's parting words are echoing back to him as she stands. She's graceful and beautiful even in the tattered remains of the clothes hanging on her small frame. She coils the strange ropes on the floor in two perfect heaps, showing forearms marred by them; she doesn't look pained or bothered by her wounds. 

She walks to the table and picks up one of the weapons there - a long sharp-edged knife whose form and brand Dean can't place. Close to the light, Dean can see Gordon in her, the bend of her lips, an expression in her eyes that would be Gordon's if Gordon weren't a hardened asshole. She looks mesmerized by the knife, twirls it slowly to catch the light.

"Where did Gordon go?" Dean asks to distract her from it.

She doesn't put the knife away like Dean had hoped, but she does stop staring at it.

"He's gone hunting." She chuckles. "You know once a hunter, always a hunter. Or that's what he says. Also," she shrug, "I don't think he wants to test his theory about you."

"What theory?"

"You not dying here." She walks closer and kneels at his side, knife loose in her grip.

"For the record, I think he's wrong." She puts a hand on his forehead. "See? You're feverish."

Dean had thought it was just the cold ground, but she's right. He's been shivering steadily and the air is tar in his lungs. He doesn't know how he feels about it, he doesn't know how to think anymore. Her touch morphs into a fleeting caress before she puts her hand in her lap. 

"I want to prove him wrong, you know? I've been wanting to prove him wrong for a long time." She raises the knife and with a fast move puts the point against Dean's throat. 

It stings, and even though she's not putting any pressure on it yet, the edge is so sharp blood drips onto the collar of his shirt. 

"He says I can't control myself, but he's wrong about that too."

She takes the knife away and leans in to lick the blood from Dean's neck. She's as gentle as Gordon, worrying at the cut with her lips and tongue; her left hand rests on his shoulder. It's strangely intimate and calming, like she's getting Dean in a trance and there's nothing he wants more than feeding her his blood.

Dean closes his eyes, says, "Then what about the little show before?"

She takes her time answering, a couple of licks more and a smacking sound and a satisfied sigh. Then she sits cross-legged, something like glee on her face and in her posture that makes her look her true age - her human age. Dean imagines tight jeans and loose hair, he imagines parties and boyfriends and the life that was stolen from her.

"I was angry," she confesses.

"Angry?"

"Yeah." She plays with the knife with nervous fingers. "He kept talking about you, you know? You and your brother. He doesn't like him very much, by the way, not like he likes you" She leans back. "You and your angel friend made such a ruckus when you landed everybody must have heard you. My brother was so angry when he caught your scent. Left without saying where he was going."

The reminder that he doesn't know where Castiel is or if he's even alive hits Dean like a slap to the face, his cheeks burn. 

She raises the knife so the flame plays on the edge and lights her glowing eyes, stares at it and then she lets it falls on her lap, looking bored. She probably doesn't realize how much like her brother she looks.

"You ruin everything."

"I do?"

She stands, and the knife clatters to the rocky ground with a noise that bounces from the walls. Dean straightens up, wonder if she did it on purpose. He only has to twist to reach it. 

"Before Gordon came, I lived with the packs in the woods. It was--" she shudders. "It was bad. My brother was a hunter, and they didn't let me forget it."

She falls silent, absorbed in whatever nightmarish memories she's reliving on the blank rock she stares at. Dean moves slowly, clamping down on a groan with his teeth and tongue when his body protests. He tries not to think how he'll even stand without falling face-first.

"Then he came for me, like he always does. It's been perfect, just the two of us." There's no pleasure in those words, the smile crooked, verging on disgusted. 

Dean's arms are like lead when he moves them, and his shoulders burn. He stops to catch his breath, rides off the hurt spreading down his back like hooks in his flesh. He wants to go back to numb, to listen to that part of his brain that tells him to let it go, and give in.

"Why don't you leave?" he asks.

She looks down at him, bends and picks up the knife. "You need to go, Dean. I don't want you here."

She's not careful; nicking his shirt and the skin beneath as she cuts the ropes, eyes growing violent when blood soaks through the cloth. She doesn't feed this time, grabs him up instead and puts him upright, dizzy and wobbly and trembling against the rock. Her tiny hands are strong, so strong, when they curl up in his shirt.

"Go away," she says. "Pick as many weapons as you want and run." She thrusts the knife in his hand, closing his fingers around the handle until he nods. It's painful, every muscle awake at the same time and hardening with cramps, and fever flaring all of a sudden. He bites his lips, breathes, and shrugs out of her hold.

"I could kill you," he says, armed and feeling a bit better about it. But the threat is weak as his first step without the support of the wall. His wounded leg strains under his weight, the pain of infection spreading to his groin and ankle. 

Susan laughs and Dean smiles at her. "Can't kill a fly, yeah?" he says and the table looks so far away, unreachable.

She hovers close by without helping and Dean's so grateful for that he thinks he may cry. 

"You can't kill me," she says when Dean finally reaches the table and leans heavily on it. "My brother killed me." There's no anger in her tone and Dean doesn't know her well, but he'd say that she's sad about it.

Dean rummages through the weapons, finds bullets and a gun but ignores both in favor of a crossbow. The stirrup is broken, but he can fix it. He picks up a couple of thin knives, his own machete and another that looks sharper. His eye falls over the table and he sees his leather jacket lying in a heap on the ground. There's no way he's standing up again if he bends to take it, but he doesn't need to because Susan is already helping him inside it a moment before he's formed the thought. The jacket warms him and has pockets where he can put the weapons away. He wonders idly how Gordon came up with them, if they're real or mere echoes. Susan's knife had felt real enough against his throat and the crossbow is heavy on his back.

"You need to hurry up." She's fidgeting now, showing fear for the first time. "He'll be back any time now."

He thinks of walking and sweat breaks up on his brow and back; running is completely out of question. He snorts. He limps toward the exit, sees the passage Gordon disappeared into: it's narrow and low and he'll need to half-crawl inside. 

Susan stays by the table, backlit by the torch. 

"He'll never let you go if you don't run now." It's a whisper and Dean's not sure she's talking to Dean, but he has to ask again.

"Why do you stay, Susan?"

He knows the answer. He does even before she speaks. "He's my brother," she says. "I won't leave him alone. He needs me, maybe even more than I need him."

He thinks of saying something, but nothing sounds good. He nods and turns toward the exit. 

"Go to the towns, over the hills," she says when he's halfway into the passage. "Maybe someone will know how to help you."

He blames his distraction on Susan's last words. The elation of knowing that maybe there's a way out, even as improbable as the idea of someone wanting to help Dean. When he sees Gordon's shadow darkening the passage, it's too late. Gordon's blow to his midsection sends him skittering backward, back colliding hard with the rock and driving his breath away from his lungs.

*

Dean expected anger, he expected shouting and violence, but Gordon is controlled, pissed off and terrible and imposing and tall from Dean's position on the ground. A boot on Dean's leg just above his wound is enough to make his vision blur, consume all the air he can't draw, and leave him trembling and unmoving. 

When the pressure on his leg eases Dean curls in on himself, eyes closed and trying to ride out a pain that refuses to ebb. Susan is saying something, but Dean doesn't recognize the words, only the tone, and she's furious, no trace of quaver or fear in her voice. Under the roar in his head he finds time to feel pride for her. 

Garbled noises drive him to open his eyes, vision blurry and fuzzy with sweat. He sees a corner of slimy ground, one leg of the table, a twisted branch that hardly looks like it can bear the table's weight. His machete has slipped away, under the table and so far away, miles and miles beyond his reach. He notices now that the crossbow is digging into his right shoulder, broken beyond repair maybe. 

Gordon gives him his back, too focused on Susan to mind him and that pisses Dean off. To be discarded and dismissed like Dean is no threat.

He turns over and his left leg drags like a dead thing, and his arm flails to the inside of his pocket where he suddenly remembers he'd put his stolen weapons away. He feels better already with the handle of the knife in his hand, even though another wave of pain lets a whimper out of his mouth and forces him to still, to catch his breath. 

Putting his legs under him drenches him with sweat and all he gets for his trouble is an uncoordinated kneel, leg pulsing so painfully his heart must surely be falling out of the wound. He wonders how far Gordon will let him go, and then he looks finally at him and his sister, locked in what looks like an embrace if it weren't for Susan's claws digging deep into the small of Gordon's back. She's hidden behind Gordon's bigger body, and her bare feet are hovering just above the ground and kicking, against the rock, against Gordon's legs and his booted feet. Dean's afraid he's going to kill her, the thought stupid: she's dead already, maybe killed more than once over and over so many times until it means nothing. He shivers, stands, and by some sort of miracle doesn't fall. 

He hops on his good leg, palm sweaty around the knife, no plan but stopping Gordon. He uses the collar of Gordon's jacket as support to drive the knife right into his neck with as much strength as he can gather. Gordon yelps a surprised shout that mends the sting of his early dismissal. Dean's victory doesn't last a blow with his elbow sends Dean to the ground again. 

He lies on the ground, breathless. This time he knows he's not getting back up, and all of the intensity of Gordon's silent attention is on him. 

He averts his eyes, looks at Susan, who has fallen on the floor, neck and face red, her features changed. Right before his eyes, Gordon is shifting, too, giving him a glimpse of what lies beneath his human form: elongated legs and and arms and clawed hands. The shape of his face is now completely hidden in a prominent jaw and razor-sharp teeth and eyes like hellfire. More animal than human, even as his he drags the knife from his own neck. Arterial blood sprays in the air in a low arch, falls on the floor and drenches Gordon's clothes and Dean's boots.

Gordon voice is shredded, faint, like it's coming from under a grave.

"Why can't you stop being stubborn?"

Gordon splays his arms to include Susan, the movement all wrong with those long arms. Dean looks at Susan, but she is crawling away and Dean's too slow, his brain too loud with pain, to understand what she's trying to do until she's picking up the machete. 

"There's nothing outside for you, Dean," he says. "You think what they did to Susan is bad, think of the hunters that have turned up here." He leans down to drag Dean by the lapels of his jacket, and Dean says nothing, lets him do it, a bag of rattling bones when Gordon shakes him hard. Gordon lets him go as suddenly, and Dean must be hallucinating, because there's compassion on those alien features, and for a moment there's the illusion of the man Dean had shared a drink with so long ago.

"You'll be good here with us," Gordon says, hands patting Dean's chest, petting Dean's face. "I can take care of you." Stubborn and convincing Dean wants to give in, believe he would be okay, maybe; done fighting. 

The swift hack of the machete surprises Dean, surprises Gordon even more, his eyes impossibly large. Gordon tries to turn but the movement makes his cut head fall on the ground, body following a moment later. Back to human, now.

Dean rubs his brow, there's blood on Dean's face too mixing with his sweat and burning his eyes, hazing his vision. But Susan is there, on her knees, arms around Gordon's headless body and tears and snot on her face.

"Go!" she says. "Please, go."

She rocks Gordon's body back and forth, murmuring something, and Dean's frozen, spell-bound. She rocks Gordon's headless body back and forth as if he were a child. 

Only when she drags Gordon's head closer Dean looks away, focuses on getting up.

He tries to ignore Susan's sobs and her apologies to Gordon's body. It's a slow and painful process. Maybe he might not be able to die here, but his body's hurting like a motherfucker and it's hard not giving into the desire to close his eyes and sleep for the rest of eternity.

On all four he reaches for his machete, uses it to stand up on his good leg. Two long breaths to steady himself before he's brave enough to put weight on his wounded one. He's bleeding again, and he'll need to cut another strip from his shirt to bind his thigh.

Susan has gone silent by the time he's at the exit. He leans on the rock to catch his breath and turns to stare at her: Gordon's head is already hanging sideways from the black tendons of his neck. 

"He's fast." Susan says. "But don't worry. I'll stall him. You've got some time."

She has ropes twisted around her hand.

Dean adjusts the crossbow on his back and nods, wonders how many times this has happened, if Susan has killed her brother over and over again and has been killed herself. If she's cried as hard each time it's happened or if Gordon has. He doesn't pretend to understand how it is between the two of them. Only each other for the rest of eternity. 

"I'm sorry," Dean says before he ducks into the passageway. Sorry for how unfair it is to the both of them, at the fucking universe and God's rules, each more cruel than the last one.

It's dark in the passage, the light from Gordon's torches gone after a few steps. Dean finds his out with arms stretched against the rock and when he's outside he finds a dark sky and no landmark he recognizes: trees that reach toward the sky, branches immobile in the absence of wind. The calm is deceptive, he knows, but a glimmer of hope is beating against his ribcage. 

Over the hills, Susan had said; towns. The concept alone so surprising Dean doesn't know what to do with it. Maybe, he'll find Cas there, maybe he's been taken and that's why he hasn't come back. Dean stares around. first he will have to find the hills again. 

He picks a direction and starts walking.

\--


End file.
